


Chrysanthemum Dreams

by OddlyExquisite



Series: The Still Center [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, pre-TPM - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Goddammit Qui-Gon, M/M, Pre-Slash, Victorian Flower Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 02:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5849710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddlyExquisite/pseuds/OddlyExquisite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan has an epiphany, and realizes that he may have broken something he did not know was fragile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chrysanthemum Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Many thanks to my Beta, the magical Merry_Amelie, vanquisher of comma errors!
> 
> 2) If you are familiar with the "language of flowers" (particularly chrysanthemums), it might add another layer to the fic. 
> 
> 3) Thank you for the amazing artwork, Cobalt_Djinn!

 

* * *

 

**Part Two**

 

The first time it happens, he is not ready. 

They are preparing breakfast a few hours after the sun rises- later than usual. This, perhaps, is the first sign.

Obi-Wan's skin is marked with faint red lines from the weave of his blankets and they, like his half-open eyes, offer an unvoiced appeal for silence. It is cold, but the room their bodies occupy is warm with the scent of fresh bread and tea.

Obi-Wan fixes the food. Qui-Gon brews the tea. This is ritual.

"Obi-Wan."

"Mmm?"

The touch is light against his Padawan braid. "Spend the evening with me?"

"Wha-? I-yes! Yes, of course, Master!" Breathless.

Qui-Gon's smile is slow and sweet as he turns away. Something in Obi-Wan's chest constricts.

That night, Obi-Wan goes to bed with wine-hazed recollections of card games, friendly teasing, and his Master's smile. He dreams, and his dreams are of sun-soaked skin and a man as tall as myth.

The next morning, he wakes to find Qui-Gon already gone for the day.

In the middle of their breakfast table sits a shallow glass bowl. Inside, Obi-Wan finds a chrysanthemum made of beautiful red paper. Holding his breath, he traces the crisp edges and clever folds. He wonders first how his Master's large fingers made something so delicate, and second, why Qui-Gon had thought to waste a commodity so precious on an artistic whim. Beside the bowl, there is a note on a datapad.

For you.

  
- QGJ 

A trifle for the Padawan. Obi-Wan smiles.

 

 *********  

The second time it happens, he has been away from Coruscant for longer than expected.

An opportunity for a diplomatic mission with another Master while his own was away hadn't seemed dangerous at the time. Now, however, he thoroughly regrets the decision.

He drags himself to their shared quarters, staggering through the too-narrow-too-long hallway. He sags against the door, trying to breathe through the knife-hot pain in his side. Somewhere over the course of his journey, his braid had become mussed.

That is how Qui-Gon finds him; clumsy-body-shaking-fingers fumbling with his braid. Obi-Wan catches only a glimpse of his Master's pale face before he is picked up bodily and brought inside.

Obi-Wan makes a low sound of protest; he can only think of the mess he must be making on the carpet, and of the muddy, ragged, red-gold strands. For some reason, nothing else seems quite so important as making sure his braid is rewoven.

He struggles briefly when his Master places him in a tub of warm water, but is soothed with the same shushing sound usually reserved for frightened animals. He closes his eyes as Qui-Gon bathes him, unaccountably ashamed of how dirty the water is, but too exhausted to do anything but breathe...

_...he watches his shadow lengthen as the day moves on...he has not moved for hours, days, years...the Sand People pass him by every now and again, peering out from beneath their cowls and wondering how long it takes the desert to bury a man like him..._

Obi-Wan opens his eyes and finds himself in his Master's bed. He tries to move but his limbs are heavy with overuse. Instead, he reaches for the Force-signature of the room, his Master's Force-signature, and sinks into the -

_-deep-comfort, Force-still-center-_

-and wonders if Qui-Gon knows how many people crave to be where Obi-Wan is now.

He has never seen his Master so raw. Qui-Gon is focused on his task, smoothing ointment onto half-healed wounds. Obi-Wan tries to tell him to leave it, not to bother, that his wounds will heal on their own, but something in the tremor of those broad hands stops the words from coming out. Something akin to anger in those muted blue-grey eyes.

This startles Obi-Wan, who has never seen his Master lose his temper. During negotiations, his Master was prone to sarcasm, subtle undercurrents of frustration, but never anger. Not when he was a young Padawan, and spilled tea all over Qui-Gon's datapad. Not when he accidentally dyed their sheets pink. Not even when Obi-Wan fought with another Padawan, not even when-

No. Perhaps once. But only once, when Tahl...

Qui-Gon's hands are trembling far too much to wrap bandages. Obi-Wan silently takes them from him and does it himself. The older man looks on, fists clenched in his lap.

"I'm sorry I-it's ok, Master," Obi-Wan says, trying in vain to answer the question in his Master's gaze.

"Padawan," Qui-Gon murmurs softly, running his thumb across Obi-Wan's lips. The touch is unbearably intimate and Obi-Wan wants more, so much more.

"I am glad you are home." The older man's voice sounds pained. Obi-Wan barely has time to reply before- "Sleep."

The next time Obi-Wan awakens, he finds a small meal on the bedside table, and two perfectly folded white chrysanthemums.

 

*********

Obi-Wan is sitting in the archives. He has always found the musty smell of these rooms comforting...like a reminder of something he once knew, but has since forgotten. (A breath of air from his past, or perhaps, his future...)

It is growing late.

He starts at the hand upon his shoulder. His eyes take a moment to focus on the being he recognized instantly from the sweet cinnamon scent of him. The hand sweeps down Obi-Wan's arm and gently clasps his hand.

"Vrill! You're back!" Obi-Wan leans into the half-embrace of the newly made Knight, yawning so loudly his jaw cracks. He is only vaguely aware of the handsome dark face hovering before his, gathering his things.

"Come, Obi, let's get you home."

Obi-Wan offers no protest, letting himself be led by the hand like a child. Vrill's hand is soft and slender around his. Something in him knows that Qui-Gon's hand would be rough, callused, large enough to engulf his completely. Inexplicably, Obi-Wan blushes. A warm tingling rushes through his body and settles in his stomach. A familiar feeling.

Vrill has somehow gotten Obi-Wan inside his quarters. Obi-Wan sits at the breakfast table, catching a glimpse of the light beneath Qui-Gon's bedroom door. He feels a moment's confusion before becoming concerned with other things: Why is his Master still awake?

Obi-Wan sheds his cloak and outer tunic, allowing Vrill to bring them to his room. When Vrill returns, he kneels between Obi-Wan's legs and begins unbuckling his boots; an intimacy granted to few.

"Vrill, I-"

"Shhh...you're loud."

Suddenly, the room is still. Obi-Wan looks up, and Qui-Gon is standing in his bedroom doorway in nothing more than sleep pants and old socks. His Master looks oddly vulnerable that way, Obi-Wan muses, nearly ready for sleep, hair half untangled, brush dangling from his hand...and that shocked-anger-wounded-confusion in his eyes upon seeing Vrill kneeling before Obi-Wan.

"...Excuse me." The murmur is soft, barely audible. Qui-Gon's head is bowed as he turns into his room and shuts the door.

Vrill stands and stares at the closed door, as if coming to a sudden realization. "It's getting late, Obi-Wan. I can let myself out."

When his friend leaves, Obi-Wan picks himself up and hesitantly crosses the common room, ignoring the Force-signature that tells him his Master does not want to be disturbed, that there is something disharmonious in that room; a monster, tightly coiled and barely contained.

When he enters, Qui-Gon is sitting on his bed, looking as lost as Obi-Wan has ever seen him.

"Master." Mastah.

"Obi-Wan." His Master does not look at him.

There is a short silence as Obi-Wan searches for words.

"Did you know," Qui-Gon says quietly, "that when you were still a child in the creche, I would sometimes visit you on the way back from the training salle?"

"I remember."

"There was- has always been- something about you that reassures me. You have given me hope and helped me vanquish fears so thoroughly that I..."

"I know. I have always known."

Qui-Gon is studying his hands as if he'd never seen them before. "It occurs to me, Obi-Wan, that very soon you will no longer have any need of me. You are young and bright and strong in the Force, and I cannot express how proud...how grateful I am to be both your Master and your friend."

Slow understanding seeps into the back of Obi-Wan's brain. "Master?"

"But I have been selfish," Qui-Gon continues, "And my position as your Master forbids that of me. I must beg your forgiveness."

For a moment, Obi-Wan flounders, "Master, I...you must understand, Vrill has only ever been a friend. I don't-"

"This is not about your friend, Padawan."

Outside, a gentle breeze begins to blow.

"Then...the chrysanthemums...they were-"

"Yes."

The breeze rattles the trees in the Temple courtyard a bit harder.

"So..." Obi-Wan says quietly, "What you are saying is that you've made a mistake."

Qui-Gon must have heard the whisper of hurt. "This is not about your worth, Padawan."

"Then what?" The words are torn from Obi-Wan's lips as if some demon had reached down his throat and pulled them from his heart. He is surprised at himself; in all of the scenarios he's imagined where Qui-Gon rejected him, he'd never once pictured himself begging for the 'why'.

"...A Jedi Master is sworn to poverty," Carefully said, "And I have come dangerously close to asking for something priceless." 

Obi-Wan is shaking now, for he cannot still the sudden hurt that aches in his bones, the massive feeling of loss that howls through his bloodstream. He is dangerously close to tears, but he wraps his dignity around him like a cloak. It occurs to him that Qui-Gon has never hidden behind dogma before. For some reason, that makes it worse.

"Cowardice is unbecoming of you, Master." The words seem to take on a life of their own and jump from his mouth. For a panicked moment, Obi-Wan realizes that he has never spoken to his Master this way, never spoken to him with anything but deference and love and-

His thoughts freeze when Qui-Gon finally looks at him. The consummate Jedi Master says nothing to defend himself against the attack. 

"Perhaps you should go to bed, Obi-Wan. I will see you in the morning." Said gently, but the words are oddly closed, empty. 

"Yes, Master." It is only the long habit of obedience that makes these words easy. Makes it easy to allow his legs to carry him out of his Master's space and into the common room. The door closes behind him.

Collapsing on the couch, Obi-Wan stares at the bowl of chrysanthemums on the breakfast table and notices that the dim lighting of the kitchen has turned them yellow.

 

*********

He is dreaming.

_...hot desert wind, sandstorm tearing through everything he's ever loved and even Qui-Gon's cloak cannot protect him from this now..._

_-yellow eyes, silver-brown hair dancing around a small boy that-_

_...sound of a 'saber, red-hot and angry...black clothed being that scatters innocents like cattle, and a red chrysanthemum blooming between Qui-Gon's ribs..._

Obi-Wan wakes with a start, gasping for breath. He lies back down after long minutes and tries to reassure himself to the beat of his heart.

_Just a dream..._

Ba-thump.

_Just a dream..._

Ba-thump.

_Just a dream._

 

*****

 


End file.
